Sunday, March 31, 2019

Huawei, which is a private company wholly owned by its employees, reported 2018 revenue of CNY721,202 million, representing an increase of 19.5% year-on-year. Net profit grew by 25.1% year-on-year to CNY59,345 million.

To increase transparency of its operations, Huawei published a 157-page annual report in English that provides an unprecedented look into the workings for the company.

"The easiest way to bring down a fortress is to attack it from within and the easiest way to
reinforce it is from outside. Moving forward, we will do everything we can to shake off outside distractions, improve management, and make progress towards our strategic goals." -- Guo Ping, Huawei's Rotating Chairman

Some highlights from the report:

Huawei earned CNY372,162 million in revenue from the Chinese market, up 19.1% year-on-year. Smart phone sales were the hottest growth area.

Huawei earned CNY204,536 million in revenue from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), up 24.3% from 2017

Huawei’s revenue from the Americas grew to CNY47,885 million, up 21.3% from 2017.

Huawei's consumer business generated revenue of CNY348,852 million, a year-on-year increase of 45.1%.

In the face of new opportunities and challenges, Huawei's carrier business generated revenue of CNY294,012 million, down 1.3%

As of the end of February, Huawei had 30 contracts for 5G.

As of the end of February, Huawei had shipped more than 40,000 5G base stations to markets around the world.

More than 50 carriers around the world, including Vodafone, Telefónica, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, have partnered with Huawei on 5G commercial tests.

Huawei’s 10G PON solutions have been deployed commercially by more than 30 leading carriers.

Huawei's Optical Distribution Network (ODN) has been deployed by more than 80 carriers.

As of the end of 2018, Huawei had deployed LTE-Advanced Pro (4.5G) networks for 182 carriers worldwide,

Huawei's WTTx wireless broadband has been deployed in more than 180 networks, connecting more than 40 million home users, including over a million households in the Philippines, South Africa, and Japan.

Huawei’s CloudFabric solution had been commercially deployed in more than 1,200 data centers in more than 120 countries.

Huawei's VoLTE solution is in commercial use in more than 50 network, serving more than 300 million users.

Huawei has helped more than 160 cities in over 40 countries and regions implement smart city projects.

As of December 31, 2018, the total number of patents granted to Huawei reached 87,805. About half of the patents are in China and the rest abroad.

R&D expenditure totaled CNY101,509 million in 2018, accounting for 14.1% of the company’s total revenue.

More than 80,000 Huawei employees are involved in R&D, accounting for 45% of the total workforce

A 5G Arena at this week's Hannover Messe 2019 is described as "the world's first industrial 5G campus network of this scale and diversity." The network is supported by Deutsche Telekom, Nokia and Qualcomm.

Showcases in the 5G Arena include:

Bosch Rexroth - a human machine interface with 5G-enabled emergency stop capabilitiesFesto - predictive maintenance based on 5G-collected data setsGötting - an automated guided vehicle (AGV) with live video streaming over 5GPhoenix Contact - replacing industrial Ethernet with 5G for process controlSiemens - asset analytics in the cloud with various data points collected via 5GWeidmüller - an energy monitoring solution of the welding process in car manufacturing at VolkswagenZeiss - a 5G-connected process quality control system for the automotive industry

"The smart, connected factories of the future will not only be able to make things, but make decisions too. We are very proud to support these live over-the-air demos with Nokia and European industry players to what 5G will make possible for industrial IoT," said Enrico Salvatori, senior vice president & president, Qualcomm EMEA, Qualcomm Europe, Inc. "Qualcomm Technologies has been a key enabler in the industrial IoT for years, and we look forward, with 5G, to continuing to make Industry 4.0 a reality in Europe and around the world."

"The fourth industrial revolution promises massive gains in productivity, disruptive customer experiences, and new business models," said Kathrin Buvac, President of Nokia Enterprise and Chief Strategy Officer. "Next generation networks, including 5G, will enable this industrial transformation and beyond with network reliability, capacity and low-latency features. We are delighted to work with Deutsche Messe AG and Qualcomm Technologies to bring industrial use-cases to the 5G Arena including intelligent factories, where workers are safer, equipment is smarter, and efficiencies are higher."

Deutsche Telekom announced a new, ambitious climate target: the Group is aiming to achieve a 100 percent use of electricity from renewable energy sources as early as 2021.

Deutsche Telekom also vowed to reduce other emissions from gas, oil, and other sources of energy. By 2030, the Group aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 90 percent compared to 2017.

“We want to build the future, not obstruct it”, says Tim Höttges, CEO Deutsche Telekom. “Climate protection is one of the key challenges of our age. With the new targets for the period 2021-2030, we are taking our responsibility seriously and are acting decisively, quickly and, at the same time, in a sustainable manner. Furthermore, this sends an important signal to our customers because sustainability is becoming increasingly important as a purchasing criterion,” stated Tim Höttges, CEO Deutsche Telekom.

Nokia said, taken together, the 30 commercial deals - including 16 with publicly named service provider customers - offer an insight into the progress of 5G roll-outs around the world and illustrate the value network operators see in this technology.

"This achievement marks a proud moment for Nokia as a company," commented Rajeev Suri, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nokia. "With these agreements, creating new partnerships and continuing existing relationships around the world, we can see the promise of 5G becoming a reality. Many of the 30 commercial 5G deals we celebrate today include multiple elements from across our end-to-end portfolio as our customers turn to Nokia at each stage of their 5G investment cycle."

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) announced Multi-Vendor-Integration-Verification (MVIV) for its Huawei and Cisco core infrastructure with Ericsson and Nokia supplied 5G Radio Networks.

STC plans to a diverse 5G deployment through joint innovation with the goal of providing "the best “Ultra High Speed & Low Latency” experience for its customers.

Following its 5G launch in 2018, STC and its global partners have continued to conduct joint interoperability tests to ensure seamless interworking between all elements of STC infrastructure.

Eng. Khaled I. Al Dharrab, Infrastructure Sector VP, STC, said: “5G network is developing at a very high rate. STC is a leading worldwide operator with a commitment to pioneer the technological advancements and introduce new 5G services and use-cases. We have already put ourselves on the road to enable technology and shape the future of 5G services in the Kingdom. Our collaboration with our global suppliers will push forward the boundaries for our 5G ambitions. It will definitely lead to the rise of new class of services that will go far ahead in meeting our customers’ high expectations. A well-integrated 5G network with full interoperability will deliver endless possibilities and opportunities for our deserving customers. This will also facilitate the road towards meeting KSA national 2030 Vision”.

Batelco has selected Ericsson for 5G deployment in its home market of Bahrain. The deal includes Ericsson's 5G New Radio (NR), mobile transport, and core. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Batelco recently achieved Bahrain’s first 3GPP-compliant 5G data call on a commercial mobile network using a 5G pocket router. The call used Ericsson Radio System solutions and 5G Cloud Packet Core.

Rafiah Ibrahim, Head of Market Area Middle East & Africa at Ericsson says: “Today, we are partnering with Batelco for a 5G commercial deployment in Bahrain. 5G promises to accelerate the digitization of industries, offering service providers with new opportunities and enabling them to launch the most advanced technologies while improving the end-user experience with higher data speeds and lower latency.”

Bell confirmed that it will proceed with previously announced plans to deactivate its legacy CDMA network on April 30th.

Customers in remaining CDMA coverage areas in Manitoba, Ontario, Québec and the Atlantic provinces have been notified that they will transition to Bell LTE by April 30.

"Bell is proud to welcome our CDMA customers to Canada's best national mobile network. The Bell LTE network always sets the standard in wireless speed, capacity and quality and will continue to evolve as we prepare for the introduction of 5G wireless," said Stephen Howe, Bell's Chief Technology Officer. "Our Network team looks forward to leveraging efficiencies from our CDMA shutdown, including repurposing existing site structures, fibre connections and power systems, to further enhance our industry-leading LTE network."

T-Mobile is bringing back the phone booth -- a private
, soundproof cube for letting its customers take and make calls or browse their smartphone in peace.

The first T-Mobile Phone BoothE units are being installed in NYC, Washington D.C. and Seattle. T-Mobile will be able to use an app to gain access to a booth.

“It’s 2019 and people are walking around with a finger in their ear, trying to have a conversation! The T-Mobile Phone BoothE solves this problem,” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. “The whole point of having a mobile phone is so you can converse on the go, but there are certain conversations that call for privacy. This is a major evolution in how we think about mobility – now the busiest street corner can be your cellular sanctuary.”

Thursday, March 28, 2019

The ONF and the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) agreed to collaborate on optical transport solutions that increase openness, SDN programmability, and disaggregation.

The collaboration combines the ONF's Open Disaggregated Transport Network (ODTN) project and TIP’s­­­ Open Optical & Packet Transport(OOPT) group. Both groups are leveraging open software and hardware, common APIs and community collaboration.

The groups said their existing work as highly synergistic, as the ONF (ODTN) has pursued a software-centric approach while TIP (OOPT) has pursued an open hardware agenda.

ONF (ODTN) will continue to focus on the control plane with the development of an Open Source SDN controller (ONOS) and standardization of open APIs such as Transport API (TAPI). ONF has also developed the definition of the end-to-end Data Center interconnect (DCI) use-case according to ONF’s service provider needs through its ODTN Reference Design process.

In parallel, TIP (OOPT) members have introduced two white box transponder systems, Voyager and Cassini, based on open designs. They have also developed TAI, the Transponder Abstraction Interface, and the GNPy open source optical planning tool.

Microsoft announced general availability of its Azure Data Box Edge and the Azure Data Box Gateway for on-premise deployment.

Data Box Edge, which is described as an on-premises anchor point for Azure, is offered on a pay-as-you-go basis, just like any other Azure service and the hardware is included. This 1U rack-mountable appliance provides:

Local Compute – Run containerized applications at your location. Use these to interact with your local systems or to pre-process your data before it transfers to Azure.

Azure Machine Learning utilizing an Intel Arria 10 FPGA - Use the on-board Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to accelerate inferencing of your data, then transfer it to the cloud to re-train and improve your models. Learn more about the Azure Machine Learning announcement.

Cloud managed – Easily order your device and manage these capabilities for your fleet from the cloud using the Azure Portal.

Data Box Gateway is also available as a standalone virtual appliance on a pay-as-you-go basis. It can be provisioned it in a hypervisor, using either Hyper-V or VMware, and managed through the Azure Portal. Server message block (SMB) or network file system (NFS) shares will be set up on the local network. Data landing on these shares will automatically upload to your Azure Storage account, supporting Block Blob, Page Blob, or Azure Files. We’ll handle the network retries and optimize network bandwidth for you. Multiple network interfaces mean the appliance can either sit on your local network or in a DMZ, giving your systems access to Azure Storage without having to open network connections to Azure.

In addition to Data Box Edge and Data Box Gateway, Azure announced three sizes of Data Box for offline data transfer:

Data Box – a ruggedized 100 TB transport applianceData Box Disk – a smaller, more nimble transport option with individual 8 TB disks and up to 40 TB per orderData Box Heavy Preview - a bigger version of Data Box that can scale to 1 PB.

Liquid Telecom Kenya, part of the leading pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom, selected to upgrade their existing fiber network to support OTN/DWDM technology with an initial network capacity of 500G.

The deployment will use the Nokia 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS). The solution will initially be available on the following routes:

Nairobi - Mombasa: high-capacity interconnections from Nairobi datacenters to the submarine landing stations at MombasaNairobi - Kampala: opens a new high-capacity route to Uganda, Rwanda and beyondNairobi - Namanga: opens a new high-capacity route to TanzaniaNairobi - Ethiopia: opens a new high-capacity route to Ethiopia and gives the landlocked country an alternate route to the submarine connection in Djibouti

Ben Roberts, CTO, Liquid Telecom, said: "We believe that every individual on the African continent has the right to be connected. This is the vision that has been driving our network expansion across Africa. By teaming up with Nokia, we have been able to quickly adapt to the industry's rapid growth within the region and greater access to our high-speed fibre network and cloud services across East Africa. This comes at a time when more mobile operators are planning to increase their backbone bandwidth as they prepare for 5G which is driving the demand for high speed city to city internet links."

The deployment began in October 2018, and is expected to provide enhanced services to thousands of corporate customers and FTTH users, and has the potential to reach over 85 million mobile subscribers across Kenya and its neighboring countries.

The Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) Oversight Board published a 46-page report in which it discusses significant technical issues "in Huawei’s engineering processes, leading to new risks in the UK telecommunications networks." The report also states that although Huawei continues to engage in the security review process, "no material progress has been made by Huawei in the remediation of the issues reported last year."

HCSEC, whose mission is to evaluate the security risks posed by using Huawei’s equipment in critical national infrastructure, is a facility in Banbury, Oxfordshire, belonging to Huawei Technologies and administered by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre.

Regarding the software engineering issues with potential impact on network security, the report states that the issue "is with Huawei’s underlying build process which provides no end-to-end integrity, no good configuration management, no lifecycle management of software components across versions, use of deprecated and out of support tool chains (some of which are non-deterministic) and poor hygiene in the build environments."

Vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud environments, including public and private cloud, grew 28.0% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2018 (4Q18), reaching $16.8 billion, according to a new repor from IDC.

IDC reported that annual spending (vendor revenue plus channel mark-up) on public and private cloud IT infrastructure totaled $66.1 billion in 2018, slightly higher (1.3%) than forecast in Q3 2018. IDC also raised its forecast for total spending on cloud IT infrastructure in 2019 to $70.1 billion – up 4.5% from last quarter's forecast – with year-over-year growth of 6.0%.

Some highlights from IDC:

Quarterly spending on public cloud IT infrastructure was down 6.9% in Q418 compared to the previous quarter but it still almost doubled in the past two years reaching $11.9 billion in 4Q18 and growing 33.0% year over year, while spending on private cloud infrastructure grew 19.6% reaching $5.75 billion.

Public cloud represented 69.6% of cloud IT infrastructure spending in 2018.

Spending on public cloud infrastructure growing at an annual rate of 50.2%.

Spending on private cloud grew 24.8% year over year in 2018.

In 4Q18, quarterly vendor revenues from IT infrastructure product sales into cloud environments fell and once again were lower than revenues from sales into traditional IT environments, accounting for 48.3% of the total worldwide IT infrastructure vendor revenues, up from 42.4% a year ago but down from 50.9% last quarter. For the full year 2018, spending on cloud IT infrastructure remained just below the 50% mark at 48.4%. Spending on all three technology segments in cloud IT environments is forecast to deliver slower growth in 2019 than in previous years. Ethernet switches will be the fastest growing at 23.8%, while spending on storage platforms will grow 9.1%. Spending on compute platforms will stay at $35.0 billion but still slightly higher than expected in IDC's previous forecast.

The rate of annual growth for the traditional (non-cloud) IT infrastructure segment slowed down from 3Q18 to below 1% but the segment grew 11.1% quarter over quarter. For the full year, worldwide spending on traditional non-cloud IT infrastructure grew by 12.2%, exactly as forecast, as the market has started going through a technology refresh cycle, which will wind down by 2019. By 2023, we expect that traditional non-cloud IT infrastructure will only represent 40.5% of total worldwide IT infrastructure spending (down from 51.6% in 2018). This share loss and the growing share of cloud environments in overall spending on IT infrastructure is common across all regions.

"The unprecedented growth of the infrastructure systems market in 2018 was shared across both cloud and non-cloud segments," said Kuba Stolarski, research director, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies at IDC. "As market participants prepare for a very difficult growth comparison in 2019, compounded by strong, cyclical, macroeconomic headwinds, cloud IT infrastructure will be the primary growth engine supporting overall market performance until the next cyclical refresh. With new on-premises public cloud stacks entering the picture, there is a distinct possibility of a significant surge in private cloud deployments over the next five years."

The marine survey for the Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 (DARE1) submarine cable system is complete and the cable route has been finalized.

The DARE1 cable system will connect Djibouti (Djibouti), Bosaso (Somalia), Mogadishu (Somalia) and Mombasa (Kenya). The finalized route has a length of 4,747km. The stated design capacity is 36 Tbps. The project is led by Djibouti Telecom and Somtel. Subcom is the contractor.

Manufacturing of the undersea cables and repeaters will begin in April 2019 and the system will be ready for commercial traffic in June 2020.

“We are excited about the completion of the marine survey and the additional landing point for DARE1. We believe this cable system is crucial for the development of the East African region and we are impressed by SubCom’s level of dedication and professional project management. We look forward to expanding DARE1 into other regions and connecting it with other cables to increase accessibility in Africa and across the globe,” said M Mohamed Assoweh Bouh, Djibouti Telecom Director General.

“We are pleased with the progress of the project and the diligence of all parties to mitigate risk and keep the project on schedule,” said Debra Brask, VP Project Management at SubCom. “We continue to focus on furthering connectivity in the East Africa region and are enthusiastic about building on our successful record there by working on projects such as the DARE1 cable system.”

euNetworks Group has acquired 100% of the shares of Onstage Online GmbH (“Onstage”), a fibre network operator headquartered in Vienna, Austria.

Onstage, which was founded in 1995 by Robert Dornetshuber, operates a metro network consisting of several rings and running under the pavement and in the sewers in Vienna, Each backbone node is connected to at least two other network nodes, delivering true route diversity. The network directly connects to 16 data centres in the city.

euNetworks owns and operates deep fibre networks in 14 cities across Europe and also operates a highly differentiated long haul network that spans the region.

“The acquisition of Onstage adds further uniqueness to our fibre based infrastructure,” said Brady Rafuse, Chief Executive Officer of euNetworks. “Our long haul network connects into Vienna. The addition of Onstage to euNetworks adds to our metropolitan network portfolio and immediately delivers diversity and reach in this growing market. Vienna is an important internet hub, both for proximity to Germany and also as a hub for eastbound traffic to Asia and the Middle East. This is a highly complementary business to euNetworks and growing our presence in Austria was a logical next step in our development. The combined footprint will deliver immediate value to both existing customers and our new customers that we welcome from Onstage.”

“We are delighted that Onstage has been acquired by euNetworks,” said Robert Dornetshuber, Managing Director of Onstage. “We have a shared vision of the importance of fibre networks and how they should be developed. euNetworks’ bandwidth offering across Western Europe is certainly market leading and their approach to aligning network development and investment with customer needs is very welcome.”

Aquantia has achieved ASIL B certification on its Automotive connectivity products according to ISO 26262-5 and as determined by the Certification Body for Functional Safety of the SGS-TÜV Saar.

ASIL B compliance is a critical requirement for automotive OEMs, and their Tier 1 suppliers, when choosing technology partners to ensure a vehicle’s systems meet the necessary safety levels.

“Entering the Automotive arena is radically different than traditional networking markets. The levels of safety and security are of paramount importance,” said Amir Bar-Niv, Vice President of Marketing, Automotive at Aquantia Corp. “Our team has put significant effort into attaining this certification. I am pleased that we have achieved this significant milestone in delivering compliant, Multi-Gig networking technology for the first wave of autonomous vehicles that will come to market.”

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Amazon Web Services announced general availability of Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive, a new durable object storage for long-term retention of data that is rarely accessed.

AWS said the new S3 Glacier Deep Archive is the lowest cost storage in the cloud: just $0.00099 per GB-month (less than one-tenth of one cent, or $1 per TB-month). This is significantly lower than storing and maintaining data in on-premises magnetic tape libraries or archiving data off-site.

The AWS S3 Glacier service provivdes retrieval options in minutes for archive data, while the new S3 Glacier Deep Archive is ideal for customers who want the lowest cost for archive data that is rarely accessed. In the event that recovery becomes necessary, the objects can be recovered in as little as 12 hours with S3 Glacier Deep Archive versus days or weeks with off-site tape.

“We have customers who have exabytes of storage locked away on tape, who are stuck managing tape infrastructure for the rare event of data retrieval. It’s hard to do and that data is not close to the rest of their data if they want to do analytics and machine learning on it,” said Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec, Vice President, Amazon S3, AWS. “S3 Glacier Deep Archive costs just a dollar per terabyte per month and opens up rarely accessed storage for analysis whenever the business needs it, without having to deal with the infrastructure or logistics of tape access.”

The Broadband Forum is launching a new Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) project to define the architecture and requirements for a disaggregated BNG control plane and user plane which separates the control plane and data plane.

BNG disaggregation is expected to bring benefits such as centralized locations for configuration and IP address management, leading to faster delivery of new services. The work will also ensure the control plane and user plane can be easily scaled according to customer demand.

"As demand for both broadband and bandwidth-hungry video applications grows, the disaggregation of the BNG for scalablity is critical to mitigate issues created by distributed BNG deployments. Over the years, BNGs have also had to evolve to support new functionalities such as management of multiple types of accesses, transport encapsulations and customers. This work will ensure flexible scalability through a simplified and agile architecture," stated Kevin Foster, Chairman of Broadband Forum.

ZTE reported full-year 2018 operating revenue of RMB 85.51 billion, with net profit attributable to holders of ordinary shares of the listed company amounted to RMB -6.98 billion, which was within the estimated range disclosed in the preliminary announcement of 2018 annual results.

The loss was mainly attributable to the US$1 billion penalty paid to the U.S. government. Net cash flows from operating activities amounted to RMB 1.01 billion for the three months ended 31 December 2018.

R&D spending in 2018 amounted to RMB 10.91 billion, accounted for 12.8% of the operating revenue.

ZTE said it returned to profitability in the first quarter of 2019, estimating net profit attributable to holders of ordinary shares of the listed company to be from RMB 0.8 billion to RMB 1.2 billion.

Some highlights:

In the Wireless Networks, ZTE announced collaborations with 30 global operators in 5G, with the shipment of Massive MIMO base stations reaching 10,000 and more than 400 NFV commercial and PoC cases worldwide.

In the Wireline Networks, ZTE see opportunities such as 5G transport, big video, next-generation PON, SDN/NFV.

In terms of devices, ZTE has concentrated on 5G devices, industrial applications and key markets. In the first half of 2019, ZTE’s 5G smartphones will be ready for commercial use. Its 5G flagship smartphone Axon 10 Pro 5G, debuted at MWC 2019, is expected to be first available in Europe and China. Moreover, the company has been committed to promoting serialized 5G products, such as 5G tablets, 5G indoor and outdoor CPEs, 5G mobile hotspots, 5G data devices, 5G vertical industry modules, so as to constantly satisfy consumers’ requirements for 5G intelligent application scenarios.

ZTE has cumulatively filed over 73,000 patents globally, with more than 35,000 granted.

Amazon Web Services has been awarded a multi-year, global agreement to build the Volkswagen Industrial Cloud, a cloud-based Industrial digital production platform that will transform the automotive company’s manufacturing and logistics processes.

Volkswagen will rely upon the breadth and depth of AWS’s portfolio of services, including IoT, machine learning, analytics, and compute services to increase plant efficiency and uptime, improve production flexibility, and increase vehicle quality.

The Volkswagen Industrial Cloud will bring together real-time data from all of the Volkswagen Group’s 122 manufacturing plants to manage the overall effectiveness of assembly equipment, as well as track parts and vehicles.

Volkswagen will use the suite of AWS IoT services, including AWS IoT Greengrass, AWS IoT Core, AWS IoT Analytics, and AWS IoT SiteWise, to detect, collect, organize, and run sophisticated analytics on data from the plant floor.

A key idea is to assemble a company-wide Data Lake built on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to analyze the data. Volkswagen will use Amazon SageMaker, a fully-managed service that provides developers and data scientists with the ability to build, train, and deploy machine learning models quickly, to optimize the operation of machinery and equipment in all of its plants. Additionally, Volkswagen plans to use AWS Outposts, which bring native AWS services, infrastructure, and operating models on-premises, providing seamless functionality between the factory floor and the cloud for latency sensitive applications, offering a consistent hybrid experience.

Midwest Fiber Network has successfully upgraded an existing fiber transport network with a 200 GbE system based on the Fujitsu 1FINITY S100 Layer 2 Switch and Virtuora Network Control Solution.

Specifically, MFN opted to overlay the existing network with a disaggregated 200 Gbps architecture based on the Fujitsu 1FINITY S100 modular platform with up to 1.2 Tbps bidirectional packet switching capacity. Paired with the Virtuora network controller and packet control application, the 1FINITY platform enables a programmable, software-defined network infrastructure that offers future-proof capacity with a low total cost of ownership, allowing the MFN member companies to take advantage of emerging business opportunities.

The nine telecom carriers that make up the collaborative Midwest Fiber Network (MFN) deliver voice, video and data services to residential and business subscribers throughout southwestern Iowa, in addition to providing mobile backhaul services. MFN operates a shared transport architecture that spans several hundred miles of fiber network.

Fujits said this high-capacity Carrier Ethernet network delivers a substantial boost in bandwidth for MFN member companies and their customers, with a flexible evolution path to meet future capacity needs as well.

“The MFN member companies, like other communications service providers worldwide, need to strike a balance between offering sufficient capacity and achieving maximum return on investment,” said Annie Bogue, head of sales and marketing, Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc. “Fujitsu recommended that MFN deploy high-capacity Carrier Ethernet technology on the 1FINITY platform as the best option to quickly boost capacity without incurring significant equipment costs, enabling a flexible, low-risk path to meet future needs.”

The CE mark is mandatory for entering the European market. The Huawei Mate X passed CE certification covering requirements in terms of radio frequency (RF), electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), safety (Safety & SAR), RoHs, and environmental protection. As a leading test service provider and pioneer in wireless communications technology, TUV Rheinland has been focusing on 5G development and its commercialization process.

ON Semiconductor agreed to acquire Quantenna Communications for $24.50 per share in cash, representing an equity valye of approximately $1.07 billion and enterprise value of approximately $936 million, after accounting for Quantenna’s net cash.

Quantenna, which is a leading developer of Wi-Fi technology and software, was founded in 2006 and is based in San Jose, California.

“We are very pleased to welcome Quantenna to ON Semiconductor’s team. The acquisition of Quantenna is another step towards strengthening our presence in industrial and automotive markets. The combination of ON’s expertise in highly efficient power management and broad sales and distribution reach, and Quantenna’s industry leading Wi-Fi technologies and software expertise creates a formidable platform for addressing fast growing markets for low-power connectivity in industrial and automotive applications,” said Keith Jackson, president and chief executive officer of ON Semiconductor. “I am very excited about the opportunity this acquisition creates for customers, shareholders, and employees of the two companies.”

“Today’s announcement is great news for Quantenna employees and customers worldwide. As part of ON Semiconductor, Quantenna will benefit from a world-class organization in our commitment to providing the best end user experience for our customers,” stated Dr. Sam Heidari, chairman and chief executive officer of Quantenna. “We are proud of our accomplishments and look forward to a smooth transition with the ON Semiconductor team to pursue exciting new opportunities for Quantenna’s talented employees and reinforce our longstanding position as a leading Wi-Fi technology innovator.”

Earlier this month, Quantenna Communications announced a new benchmark for Wi-Fi network performance by achieving over 2 Gbps total throughput. This was attained by connecting multiple laptops with commercially available Intel Wireless-AC 9260 2x2AC MIMO wireless modems to a Quantenna-based 8x8 MIMO access point and utilizing the latest Wi-Fi features such as multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO).

“Quantenna is proud of its continuous innovation to perfect Wi-Fi connectivity and user experience. We prove it once again by reaching this multi-gigabit milestone,” said Dr. Sam Heidari, chairman and CEO of Quantenna.

Quantenna’s Wi-Fi 6 QSR10GU-AX Plus chipset provides integrated dual-band, dual-concurrent 2.4GHz and 5GHz functionality, supporting up to a maximum speed of 10 Gbps and 12 simultaneous streams. It includes the SmartScan feature that offers enhanced radar detection and spectrum analyzer capabilities with wide frequency range analysis. The QSR10GU-AX Plus also supports advanced MU-MIMO schemes, allowing for transmission to multiple devices at the same time. The Intel Wireless-AC 2X2 160 MHz delivers Gigabit Wi-Fi speeds and includes two antennas for reliable connections, making it possible for users to experience smooth gaming and 4K UHD video streaming, and fast file transfers and backups on their devices.

Touitou previously served as VP and General Manager of the Imaging Clinical Apps Business unit at Philips, where she oversaw a global, cross-functional team integrating engineering, service, sales and marketing. Prior to Philips, she was General Manager and president of the Customer Management Division in Amdocs, leading strategy,
product management, R&D, pre-sales and marketing efforts. In this role, she exceeded sales targets and became a driver for exceptional customer experiences.

“ECI is a company I’ve admired for more than 20 years, back when I used to be a software developer here, and I’ve kept my eye on it as it’s grown and thrived into the company it is today,” said Touitou. “I cannot wait to continue my journey and rejoin this successful team who are creating flexible networking solutions that bring connectivity and 5G to a global audience, while keeping an eye toward innovation and building trust with our customers.”

OpenDaylight was founded in 2013 as an open source framework to accelerate adoption, foster innovation, and create a more open and transparent approach to SDN. It was the Linux Foundation's first networking project and is now part of LFN. ODL helps power over 1B global network subscribers.

The Linux Foundation said it continues to see more industry partners deploy the ODL platform and realize the power of open SDN/NFV. Recent examples include:

Coweaver, one of the largest optical network system makers in South Korea, used ODL to build its Network Management Service (NMS), which is leveraged by South Korean and global vendors.

FRINX's UniConfig, now powered by PANTHEON.tech's lighty.io, is based on OpenDaylight and enables vendors to build and deploy applications faster.

Inspur's OpenDaylight-based SDN controller is used to manage virtual and physical devices for both enterprise and government cloud environments in China.

Partnership between NoviFlow and Lumina Networks, a provider of OpenDaylight-based SDN Controller solutions, who together are using OpenDaylight as part of a solution to create and deliver an intent-based Terabit-scale network that reduces costs and network complexity.

Lumina Networks also just announced Lumina Extension & Adaptation Platform, LEAP, which is a platform that extends the benefits of OpenDaylight to legacy devices as well as advanced model-to-model translation, and a cloud native app (or MicroServices) dev environment.

Telecom Argentina has chosen OpenDaylight for a wide range of use cases, including the enablement of CDN traffic optimization capability that improves customer experience and reduces data transport costs.

Integration with other open source communities continues to grow, including collaborations with OpenStack, Kubernetes, OPNFV, and ONAP. ONAP is using OpenDaylight in its APP-C, SDN-C, and SDN-R projects for use cases like 5G and CCVPN.

OpenDaylight Neon brings updated features important to networking use cases, such as optical transport networking, WAN connectivity and routing, as well as virtual networking in cloud and edge environments. Neon also features new stability and scalability enhancements, and cements the project's leadership in working with other open source communities to expedite next-generation networking solutions.

Specific enhancements in OpenDaylight Neon include:

Cloud/Edge Network Virtualization features have been hardened with the Neon release to further enhance the suitability of OpenDaylight in production networks.Optical Transport Infrastructure Control now offers new features that ensure interoperability with higher level controllers using an open northbound API.WAN Connectivity: Building on Fluorine's mature BGP stack, Neon brings enhancements that improve error reporting, restarts and network stability.Improved Stability and Reliability: Neon includes improvements in stability and scale, in addition to functional enhancements and bug fixes. OpenDaylight continues to undergo infrastructure enhancements making it easier for vendors and downstream open source projects to rapidly put-together and deploy OpenDaylight-dependent products and platforms.

"This has been possible in large part due to the modular and extensible software architecture which makes it possible to use OpenDaylight in a variety of use cases," said Abhijit Kumbhare, OpenDaylight Technical Steering Committee chair.

"Neon speaks to OpenDaylight's longevity as well as its integration with other projects like Kubernetes, ONAP, OPNFV, and OpenStack," said Phil Robb, vice president, Operations, Networking, and Orchestration, the Linux Foundation. "I am continually impressed by the community's cohesiveness in delivering platform releases with updates and features that enhance evolving SDN use cases."

"We are pleased to congratulate OpenDaylight on its sixth birthday," said Brian Freeman, Distinguished Member Technical Staff, AT&T Labs. "AT&T has been using OpenDaylight since Hydrogen, with production deployments since Helium in 2015. Today, we have global deployments with L3 applications using BGPCEP and NETCONF. Our deployments span control of L0 OpenROADM devices to L7 Mobility PNFs and VNFs. Needless to say, we look forward to test-driving Neon and deploying it to production."

The world’s first commercial-grade quantum test network link is now operational between the BT Labs in Suffolk and the Cambridge node of the UK’s new Quantum Network, which is being built by the Quantum Communications Hub, a collaboration between research and industry, supported by the UK’s National Quantum Technologies Programme. The new connection stretches from BT’s Adastral Park research campus near Ipswich in the East of England, to Cambridge. The wider UKQN network then extends onward over the National Dark Fibre Infrastructure Service to Bristol in the South-West.

The link uses over 125km of standard BT optical fibre between Cambridge and Adastral Park, with BT Exchanges acting as ‘trusted nodes’ along the route. The link will carry both quantum and non-quantum traffic; the QKD technique shares data encryption keys via an ultra-secure quantum channel over the same fibre that carries the encrypted data itself.

ADVA confirmed that its FSP 3000 is playing a key role in the new UKQNtel transport network secured by quantum key distribution (QKD). As part of an initiative led by QComm Hub, and with partners BT, ID Quantique and the universities of Cambridge and York, ADVA has constructed a QKD link capable of carrying classical and quantum channels on the same standard, installed fiber.

“Today’s launch is a significant step for network security. As well as being the UK’s longest QKD-protected link able to transmit both classical and quantum applications, this solution breaks new ground by showcasing the readiness of quantum cryptography for real-world transport,” said Professor Tim Whitley, MD, research and innovation, BT. “Our team has been at the forefront of developing quantum-secure telecoms infrastructure from day one. We’ve succeeded in taking the technology from PoCs in the lab to real-world demonstrations. Now we’re closing in on enabling customer trials and plans for full-scale deployments. Soon mission-critical networks will be protected even from cybercriminals intent on harvesting information today in order to decode and exploit it tomorrow.”

One minute video: Nathan Tracy at TE Connectivity discusses how COBO utilizes TE's high-speed connector and how the two companies form an industry partnership to enable new aggregate bandwidth rates for next-generation optical data centers.

Integrated Device Technology (IDT) introduced its ClockMatrix family of multi-channel clocking devices for a variety of network devices used in both backhaul and fronthaul 5G applications. The devices are already used in 5G base stations, routers, switches and other networking equipment.

The ClockMatrix family is comprised of three lines of devices:

System Synchronizers, which generate telecom-compliant clocks for network equipment

Port Synchronizers, for extending telecom-compliant clocks to the many ports in network equipment

"We recognized several years ago that the wireless carriers' impending migration to 5G networks would require more precise time synchronization, and so we designed our ClockMatrix family to both upgrade the time precision of existing network equipment as well as support new equipment designs to enable a smooth migration," said Kris Rausch, vice president and general manager of IDT's Timing Products Division. "ClockMatrix devices are the only timing solutions on the market to combine such performance and features with exceptional flexibility, which not only makes them excellent for 5G networking equipment, but a variety of other applications."

IDT said its new devices can make extremely accurate phase measurements on timing signals using their multiple inputs and precision time-to-digital converters (TDC), with some family members capable of measuring to less than 1 ps. Additionally, they offer precise control of input-to-output phase (as low as 1ps steps) along with excellent close-in phase noise performance.

The pulse width modulation (PWM) capability of the devices eliminates the need for customers to redesign existing backplanes. This allows manufacturers to get new line cards to market quickly and to target an existing installed base with a simple migration path. PWM can transmit and receive clocks, frames pulses and time-of-day (TOD) data in one signal.

The European Commission issued a set of recommendations concerning cybersecurity and 5G networks. The recommendations include legislative and policy instruments.

Key points

1. At national level -- Each Member State should complete a national risk assessment of 5G network infrastructures by the end of June 2019. Member States should update existing security requirements for network providers and include conditions for ensuring the security of public networks, especially when granting rights of use for radio frequencies in 5G bands. These measures should include reinforced obligations on suppliers and operators to ensure the security of the networks. The national risk assessments and measures should consider various risk factors, such as technical risks and risks linked to the behaviour of suppliers or operators, including those from third countries. National risk assessments will be a central element towards building a coordinated EU risk assessment.

EU Member States have the right to exclude companies from their markets for national security reasons, if they do not comply with the country's standards and legal framework.

2. At EU level -- Member States should exchange information with each other and with the support of the Commission and the European Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), will complete a coordinated risk assessment by 1 October 2019. On that basis, Member States will agree on a set of mitigating measures that can be used at national level. These can include certification requirements, tests, controls, as well as the identification of products or suppliers that are considered potentially non-secure. This work will be done by the Cooperation Group of competent authorities, as set out under the Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems, with the help of the Commission and ENISA. This coordinated work should support Member States' actions at national level and provide guidance to the Commission for possible further steps at EU level. In addition, Member States should develop specific security requirements that could apply in the context of public procurement related to 5G networks, including mandatory requirements to implement cybersecurity certification schemes.

Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, in charge of the Digital Economy and Society, added:"Protecting 5G networks aims at protecting the infrastructure that will support vital societal and economic functions – such as energy, transport, banking, and health, as well as the much more automated factories of the future. It also means protecting our democratic processes, such as elections, against interference and the spread of disinformation.”

"With investments of 57 million euros in 5G spectrum, T-Mobile is sending a clear signal for Austria's digital future. This March 26, 2019 is a historic day for our company. We are launching the first 5G network in Austria and offering our first customers mobile broadband with fiber-optic speeds over 5G," said Andreas Bierwirth, CEO of T-Mobile Austria, on launching the 5G network in Austria. "With 5G, mobile broadband coverage will keep up with fiber-optic network performance going forward, supplying regions where the laying of cables would be complex, slow, and expensive. Instead of connecting households to the internet through wires, 5G will ensure that broadband internet reaches homes through radio transmission. T-Mobile will be investing around a billion euros in total between 2018 and 2021 to guarantee that Austria has a powerful broadband infrastructure, both mobile and landline."

T-Mobile Austria will give special 5G routers to the first "friendly customers". The first 5G smartphones are expected by the end of 2019. A greater variety of models and larger numbers of 5G-enabled smartphones and tablet PCs will likely hit the market in 2020.

Austria concluded an auction of 5G spectrum in the 3.4-3.8 GHz band. Licenses were acquired by the three leading operators (A1, Hutchinson, T-Mobile) as well as some smaller players. In total, 438 out of a total of 468 frequency packages (39 packages of 10 MHz each, in twelve regions) were auctioned for a total price of around EUR 188 million. The auction lasted over three weeks.

T-Mobile Austria acquired 110 MHz of spectrum throughout the country (11 packages of 10 MHz each in 12 regions), for a total price of €57 million.

China Mobile Hong Kong (CMHK) announced its first installation of 5G infrastructure in residential properties and shopping malls.

The deployment in conjunction with Sino Group occurred in Grand Central and Olympian City. By deploying 5G infrastructure now, China Mobile will be ready when 5G spectrum is officially released in Hong Kong.

Scania has already implemented Ericsson Industry Connect in its smart production lab in Södertälje, Sweden.

Åsa Tamsons, Senior Vice President, Head of Business Area Technologies and New Businesses, Ericsson, says: “Ericsson Industry Connect is built on design thinking to meet industrial customers’ requirements on speed, reliability and security, while being easy to install and manage. It helps enterprises to accelerate their automation and operational efficiency to the next level. It complements service providers’ offerings to enterprises with a solution that is easy to scale. Ericsson Industry Connect increases the relevance of cellular solutions in the high growing segment of industrial connectivity - leveraging Ericsson’s technology leadership, strength in connectivity, and R&D investments to date.”

PT Solusi Tunas Pratama Tbk. (STP), a company that leases out telecommunication towers in Indonesia, is testing a service called "docomo sky for Tower Inspection" that uses drones to photograph base stations and telecom towers.

The system being tested is based on an operational drone-based tower inspection system developed by DOCOMO for its commercial network throughout Japan, and supports the "docomo sky" ground control station (GCS) app for assistance in inspection tasks, enabling drone operators to input flight data with ease. For the test, DOCOMO will provide its cloud-based platform for operational support and data analysis. The drones fly automatically, take photos and transmit the images via the platform in real time, enabling technicians to inspect the towers via the docomo sky web browser immediately.

Monday, March 25, 2019

BT is deploying ADVA's Oscilloquartz synchronization technology to bring 4G coverage to previously underserved areas and begin the rollout of 5G services across the UK. The new synchronization solution is deployed nationwide in 10 core time base sites, 106 metro time sites and close to 1,000 Tier 1 sites at the network edge.

Prior to this deployment, BT’s timing network was based purely on frequency synchronization.

ADVA said its Oscilloquartz enables BT to distribute stable and accurate phase and time-of-day information. The new synchronization network is built on the OSA 5430 and OSA 5440 and integrated with ADVA’s network management solution. The technology provides the sub-microsecond accuracy required for next-generation mobile applications together with hardware redundancy for unbeatable resilience.

ADVA’s modular grandmaster clocks support PTP, NTP and SyncE over multiple 10Gbit/s interfaces. They provide high levels of accuracy and holdover performance in case of GNSS outages, meeting ITU-T G.8272 primary reference time clock (PRTC) requirements. Comprehensively managed by ADVA’s network management solution, the technology is also ready to combine with its advanced cesium clocks for enhanced PRTC levels of stability, accuracy and reliability even without GNSS.

“Adding robust, highly accurate phase and time synchronization unleashes the full potential of our network. Not only does it empower us to deliver the services our customers demand today but it’s also the key to our 5G aspirations,” said Neil McRae, chief architect, BT Group. “The OSA 5430 and OSA 5440 offer the robustness of hardware redundancy together with the scale we require to meet tomorrow’s needs. Their modular design also means that our network is ready to support future timing technologies without further upgrades. Our close partnership with ADVA’s team and their Oscilloquartz timing experts is another crucial factor. It’s been clear from day one that they understood our core requirement for a flexible architecture with superb levels of precision and protection.”

“Phase synchronization has been a long-term development in international standards, and ADVA has actively contributed to that process,” commented Mike Gilson, standards contributor and technical specialist, timing and synchronization, BT Group. “By incorporating these capabilities in a flexible, high-performance solution, ADVA has created a synchronization network ready for the demands of 5G connectivity. We‘ve been very pleased with the way ADVA’s team have worked closely with us to fulfill not only our initial requirements but also provide a foundation for the future.”

“Bringing these levels of accuracy and resilience to BT’s mission-critical synchronization network is a real milestone. Achieving phase synchronization is a major challenge but with our uniquely flexible, high-capacity technology and the dedication and experience of our team, we’ve been able to handle all of that complexity on BT’s behalf and provide the ideal solution for its needs and ambitions,” said Sarah Mendham, senior director, sales, ADVA.

Microsoft announced general availability of Azure Premium Blob Storage, which is a new performance tier for block blobs and append blobs, complimenting the existing Hot, Cool, and Archive access tiers.

Premium Blob Storage is aimed at workloads that require very fast response times and/or high transactions rates, such as IoT, Telemetry, AI, and scenarios with humans in the loop such as interactive video editing, web content, online transactions, and more.

Micosoft said Premium Blob Storage provides lower and more consistent storage latency, providing low and consistent storage response times for both read and write operations across a range of object sizes, and is especially good at handling smaller blob sizes.

Premium Blob Storage is initially available in US East, US East 2, US Central, US West, US West 2, North Europe, West Europe, Japan East, Australia East, Korea Central, and Southeast Asia region.

A1 awarded a contract to Nokia for the rollout of 5G in Austria. The contract includes both Nokia's 5G radio access and cloud-native 5G core technology. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The contract reinforces the long-standing partnership between A1 and Nokia which has included the successful expansion of 3G and 4G / LTE mobile networks and the roll-out of Austria's largest fiber-optic network.

"Together with Nokia, we will leverage the full potential of 5G," says A1 CEO Marcus Grausam. "We rely on a trusted and long-standing partner with whom we have already successfully implemented numerous major projects. Now the starting signal has been given for the Austria-wide deployment of the A1 5G network, which will open up new worlds of applications and transform business models."

Peter Wukowits, head of Nokia Austria, said: "Jointly with A1, we have demonstrated the capabilities of 5G and our unique end-to-end portfolio on a number of occasions, and now the time has come to roll it out and bring it to reality. We are more than ready and feel honoured that A1 chose Nokia as its trusted partner for this important step into the digital future."

Corning opened an R&D center in Montreal, Canada, focused on discovering and developing software solutions for the telecommunications industry.

The Corning Technology Center Montreal will serve as Corning's global center of software innovation to support emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, cloud computing, and data analytics, as well as software solutions for optical-wireless networks. Software engineers from Corning's Research, Development and Engineering organization will collaborate with developers from iBwave Solutions, the Montreal-based provider of networking software solutions that Corning acquired in 2015.

The Montreal site joins Corning's network of research and development laboratories throughout North America, Europe and Asia, anchored by the company's Sullivan Park innovation center in Corning, N.Y. Over the next three to five years, Corning intends to hire software engineers, development team managers, and data analysts at the Montreal center.

"The combination of transformative technologies and applications such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things depends on the optical connectivity solutions made possible by Corning's innovations," said Claudio Mazzali, senior vice president of technology for Corning's Optical Communications business segment. "The work that will take place here in our Montreal technology center will extend Corning's innovation capabilities beyond optical transport and connectivity, all the way to the intelligence required to deploy and enable those applications. Montreal is emerging as a major center of software innovation, and Corning is glad to be part of it."

LIGENTEC is a foundry service manufacturing Photonic Integrated Circuits for customers in high-tech areas such as integrated quantum optics, LiDAR, sensors and microwave photonics.

VLC Photonics is a fabless and independent photonic design house, which provides photonic integration solutions and services. It has a wide experience in multiple material platforms (silicon photonics, indium phosphide, silicon nitride, PLC) and on the design and test of optical components and systems.

With this collaboration, designers that use LIGENTEC All-Nitride (AN) technology will now benefit from a workflow that starts from a graphical photonic integrated circuit design and system simulation environment, which seamlessly couples to layout design tools for scripted layout design and DRC capabilities. The new workflow is based on LIGENTEC and VLC Photonics verified reference designs with the simulation software by VPIphotonics using verified measurements of fabricated chips. This workflow is enabled by the new VPItoolkit PDK LIGENTEC – a pluggable toolkit extension to VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits by adding the support of the 800 nm Silicon Nitride process “AN800” offered by LIGENTEC for dedicated shuttle runs and Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) runs.

Enghouse Systems, a provider of enterprise software solutions serving a variety of vertical markets, agreed to acquire Espial Group by way of a statutory plan of arrangement under the Canada Business Corporations Act. Under the arrangement, each Espial shareholder will receive cash consideration of C$1.57 for each Espial share, valuing Espial’s total equity at approximately C$56.5 million.

Espial, which is based in Ottawa, is a supplier of digital TV, IPTV middleware, and other solutions for helping service providers manage, deliver and monetize video and entertainment services.

On February 28, Espial reported fourth-quarter revenue was $6,667,208 compared with revenue of $10,157,477 in the same period a year ago. Fourth quarter software license revenue was $2,428,087 compared to $6,081,188 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017. Software subscription revenue increased to $1,870,631 from $1,032,115 in the fourth quarter of 2017.